PAINTING OSL BASES

By Sean Fulton

Last year I decided to practice my object source lighting (OSL) on some of the Shattered Ritual bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures. These were masterfully sculpted by Chris Borer and are just the perfect base to practice OSL; is there any base that asks for the technique more than magic summoning circles? I didn’t think so either.

I started with primering the base first with white, then undercoating the dirt area and skull with black (Figure 1). I had hoped the white would fill in the deep cracks of the base a little better than it did. I probably could have gone heavier with the white primering, but I didn’t want to lose too much detail. If I had to do it again, I probably would go with black primer, as I ended up painting in the white in the cracks anyway.

My first step was to paint the dirt. My typical approach to this is going from dark to light. I used Reaper Master Series (RMS) Walnut Brown as a nice, very dark brown to cover all of dirt (Figure 2).

The next step was to cover the majority of the dirt with RMS Muddy Brown, leaving only the deep recesses and and borders against the stone Walnut Brown (Figure 3).

I highlighted the dirt further with RMS Earth Brown (Figure 4), followed by a mixture of 50/50 Earth Brown and RMS Yellowed Bone (Figure 5) picking out raised areas of interest.I finished the dirt with picking out individual clumps with pure Yellowed Bone (Figure 6).

The next piece of the base I addressed was the skull. The black basecoat serves as a nice dark undercoat for the texturing of the skull to follow (Figure 7). I thinned down some RMS Yellowed Bone and applied it fairly roughly to the entirety of the skull except within the eye sockets, nose, and along the edge of the dirt. There is no need to have a solid basecoat at this stage; the irregularity in coverage adds some interesting visual texture (Figure 8). The next step, in my opinion, is one of my favorite discoveries in recent years. I applied a generous wash of Army Painter’s (AP) Soft Tone over all the skull. This used straight from the dropper bottle and is not thinned at all. I don’t know what else is in the bottle besides the pigment, but the paint comes out slightly viscous and the pigment is not too dense. This viscosity allows the paint to layer out smoothly and I really like the way it tints the underlying Yellowed Bone, giving a nice worn and weathered appearance to the bone. I keep a second damp brush handy to wick away a little of the excess Soft Tone on raised portions of the bone, keeping some of the “highlighting” of the previous step (Figure 9). The Yellowed Bone was reapplied to further reclaim the highlights in select locations (Figure 10).

Linen white was placed very selectively with a gentle dotting motion to pick out the top highlights (Figure 11). Finally, I took some ground pigment from Mig Productions to gently weather the bone. This can be done with paint as well, but I feel that the pigment gives a better look in the end (Figure 12).

We are getting closer to the OSL! The next step was to lay down the base for the ruined stone. I wanted a very dark base so that the OSL would pop further. The first layer was a 50/50 mixture of RMS Black and RMS Shadowed Stone (Figure 13).

Once again, I am working dark to light. I heavily apply pure Shadowed Stone (Figure 14), followed by a light initial drybrush of RMS Stone Grey (Figure 15). At this point, I left the stone, but will return at the end to pick out the top highlights.

Now the OSL work begins in earnest. My first step is to apply white to the areas in the cracks and about a millimeter around each area where the OSL will emanate from and along the edges of nearby rocks and carvings (Figure 16).

Red, as a general rule, does not have great coverage and it can take many layers to get good coverage over black or a dark grey. By applying the white first, I can save a good bit of time trying to get a brighter red. The next step is to undercoat the actual source of light with Golden’s Titanium White. This is applied straight from the bottle. Normally, having paint this thick runs the risk of filling in the details of the sculpture; but in this case, I want that happen. The carvings are sculpted deeply into the base and I need them to be filled in a little to allow the paint to not be lost inside the recesses. I had to make two or three passes to fill in the cracks, but not obliterate recesses. There is a good bit of prep work here, but once the foundation is laid, the rest of the process goes quite quickly (Figure 17).

Now the OSL really begins to take shape. RMS Big Top Red is painted over the white and nearby grey areas of stone. As you can see, the red doesn’t cover well over the grey compared to the white, so provides a nice gradient for the OSL as it moves away from the source (Figure 18). The next step is a quick one to recapture the Titanium White that I accidentally covered up with the Big Top Red. This time, the Titanium White is thinned, as I just need to cover the small amount of red; I no longer need to fill in the cracks (Figure 19).

The penultimate step is to cover the Titanium White with Daler Rowney Fluorescent Red ink. These inks are fantastic for glazing. They are very thin, but also densely pigmented. You will need to thin them considerably—a little goes a long way here. I applied it and would wick away a little at a time. It is ok if the coverage is uneven. This gives areas of relative “brightness” and “darkness” to your source light, which adds some visual interest (Figure 20). The final step is a thin glaze of Daler Rowney Crimson ink. This ink is darker and help to make the Big Top Red a little “redder”.

Now I am ready to finish up the base by touching up the small details. I added some RMS Leather White to pick out the edges of the broken stones (Figure 21). The final step is thinned down pure RMS White to pick out points. These are essentially dots on corners and edges. I also added some RMS Blue liner to give some additional cool contrast to the cracks and recesses on the base.

The end result of the project is shown in figure 22. It was a great opportunity to experiment with OSL and I definitely learned some things along the way, which I hope you have found useful. Until next time!